Year: 2009

A wonderful human body tutorial/reference sheet

General Geekiness

I have a really difficult time drawing feet. I’ll do just about anything in my artistic power to avoid drawing them.

But today I found a great tutorial by the artist Joumana Medlej.

It’s very handy. The muscles are simplified, there are hands, feet, heads…

Big Guide to Drawing the Body

My apologies for the URL. My internet connection is rather spotty at the moment. I’ll edit it to be a link soon.

What’s on the Bookshelf? Vol. 5

What's On the Bookshelf?

I finally finished Patrick O’Brian’s Hussein. I liked it. It was no Master and Commander, but the book was still good.

O’Brian wrote this story, which takes place in India during the English occupation, when he was my age–about twenty.

It follows the life of Hussein, a young mahout (elephant trainer), and his many, many misadventures. He gets cholera (and survives!), encounters into bad luck, comes into good fortune, falls in love, and stumbles out of luck once more.

The book, which O’Brian termed An Entertainment, is just that. It’s light and entertaining. The characters aren’t too deep, but you still care about them. Reading this book, you can easily see the seeds of brilliance beginning to sprout.

Now I need to reread the epic Aubrey/Maturin series. I’ve only managed to get through the entire thing once…but at 20.5 volumes (he died while writing the 21st), it’s entirely understandable.

Casting your Characters

The Twirl and Swirl of Letters

Do various actors ever pop into your mind when working on a story? Do you ever think, “Oh man! Hugh Jackman would be perfect as my character”?

I took a class on modern theatre a year ago. For our final project, we had to read a play and then cast it, design costumes, etc.

I read Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. We cast David Tennant as Katurian, Sean Bean as Ariel, Michael Fairman as Tupolski, and Edward Norton as Michel (solely because we couldn’t think of anyone else).

Ever since that course, I’ve been thinking about who looks like my characters, or at least could pull them off. I haven’t been able to pinpoint anyone as Will, yet. But I’ve noticed that I rarely watch movies/TV shows with characters in their late teens-early twenties, so that may be part of the problem. Having just rewatched Dead Poets Society, I’m thinking a young Robert Sean Leonard or a young Ethan Hawke. They look completely different, but Will’s coloring is closer to Ethan’s.

For other characters, it’s a little easier. In my mind, Geoffrey looks like Peter Wingfield (a semi-underground actor who’s in mostly sci-fi stuff, but was in this season of 24).

But what about you all? Does anyone else do this?

What’s On the Bookshelf? Vol. 4

What's On the Bookshelf?

Between yesterday and today, I managed to down Alexander McCall Smith’s The World According to Bertie, the fourth book in his 44 Scotland Street series. Previously, I reviewed Espresso Tales, the second book in the series. And no, I haven’t read the third.

That’s part of the charm of the series. You don’t have to read them in order. If you wanted to, you could even start with the fourth book.

My favorite story line follows Bertie, the perpetual six year old forced to go to saxophone lessons, yoga, and a psychotherapist. In this book, he has a new baby brother named Ulysses. His parents always lose their red Volvo, but this time, they manage to outdo the leaving-it-in-Glasgow situation from Espresso Tales.

Bertie is so charming and fun to read about because of his youth, and he’s precocious without being obnoxious as hell. The poor kid just wants to be like everyone else. He wants to wear jeans, have a white bedroom and play with trains rather than wearing “crushed-strawberry dungarees,” live in a pink room (his mother wants to desensitize him to color prejudices) and being forced to play house with the obnoxious Olive. There’s a little bit of Bertie in us all, I think, and that’s what makes him so endearing.

My summer reading list

What's On the Bookshelf?

It’s only the beginning of April, but I’m already thinking of what I’m going to read this summer. So, in no particular order:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Shining by Stephen King

Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

Moon by Tony Fletcher (reread)

Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith

Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

And a bunch of other things that catch my fancy, I’m sure.

Any suggestions?